Author's Note: I apologise for the delay with this chapter. I've had some personal things and I've been trying to break through a major writer's block. I've not been entirely happy with the way this story is going for a while now, so I've planned everything up to the end of this story. Things are going to pick up over the course of the next few chapters. I'm trying to set myself on a regular update schedule every other week. Thanks for all the support and bearing with me despite all this.
"You ok, Levi?" Jonah asked, softly. Well, it sounded soft to me, but it was probably quite loud for my sake. The lights in the living room had been switched off; everyone had just crashed in there for the most part. Everyone except for Kohta, who was watching the back door from the tranquility of the large porch. Jonah and I were technically covering for the front. If anything had somehow managed to get over the huge gated entrance and into the house, we would have heard it for sure. Masumi was resting on Jonah's shoulder, deep in sleep. I didn't know what time it was, nor did I really care much.
"Nah. I'll get there, but it's been an especially rough day. Got a real grim headache, can't sleep. And y'know." I said, probably a little too loudly, as I gently motioned to Alice who had fallen asleep burying herself into my side.
"I get it, man. Cameron's hitting me hard. I know you and him never got on really well, but there must be some effect on you, right?"
"Of course there is. He was my brother. Even if he didn't want to be. Although honestly, Akira's really bothering me most."
"I'm sorry. That must really suck."
"Yeah. But we all have to deal with our own shit. I'm just glad you weren't caught up in any really huge shitstorms."
"I'm the older one. I should be more concerned about you."
"I know you're more concerned about me. Look, apparently this is just what we've got to deal with now. I'm trying to change and stay positive for the group. I can see that Takashi's lost some spirit. I understand that, but I never had much before all this either. Having to stay positive for everyone's a weird role for me to fill, but I think I have to do it right now. Maybe it'll do me some good." I reflected. Jonah said something unintelligible.
"I didn't catch that."
"Sorry. Fuck, this is so weird. You've lost half of your hearing and we have to go on like nothing happened..."
"Imagine what this is like for me, man." I chuckled.
"Yeah. Damn."
"I'll probably try and learn sign language. It might help."
"It probably will. Sounds like it's worth a shot at least. You know way too many languages already, do you know if you can handle another?"
"A fourth won't do any harm. If we have to fight more humans it might be useful for us to communicate silently." I supposed.
"That's a dark hypothetical, brother." Jonah said.
"I know. But it could save our lives. We could try and have a few of us learn. Not sure how, but we've got a huge library and semi-working internet, so we could probably figure something out. I reckon it would benefit us a lot in combat with other humans."
"Why are you so sure that's going to happen?"
"Look around, Jonah. This group has only run into a few murderous people so far, but each has taken a huge toll. We've got to adapt to this." Perhaps this was the change I was musing over earlier. If I had been more ready and more alert to fight Shido, maybe I would have thought to keep the gun away from Akira. Maybe that sort of adaptation is what we need. As soon as my mind lingered on Akira for a moment she lodged herself in my thoughts once again. As I seized up a little, Alice started moving around in her sleep mumbling about her father. She then gripped my arm with huge force, making it go pale as she cut off the blood flow. I shifted my arms to grip her the same way I did to comfort Li when she was troubled.
"It's ok. You're safe." I whispered softly. Only Jonah and Lily had ever seen me engage this side of myself to such a degree before. Only with Li. She loosened the grip on my arm, but not completely. She was pinching the skin hard.
"Alice, it's ok. Nothing bad is going to happen." I whispered. I could hardly hear myself say it.
"Promise?" She muttered.
"I promise." I said. She then drifted back into relaxation, shifting off of me and onto Rei, who was on Alice's other side.
"Seriously man, go and get some sleep. Saeko's probably expecting you. I bet she hasn't slept a bit." Jonah said, firmly but with a sly grin.
"Alright. Are you sure you're good down here?" I asked.
"Yeah. If worst comes to worst I'll throw Masumi off me..." He lowered his voice to a whisper again and I lost the rest of what he was saying to silence.
"Ok. I'll be upstairs if you need me." I said. I didn't feel like this was a very good idea, but my head was in agony and I wasn't much good to anyone in this state.
I felt scattered; I'd been practically disabled. Permanently half-deaf. Given no time to process it on top of all the death and chaos that had followed me as I tried to run from it all. I couldn't even remember how long it had been since these things had first appeared. Three weeks? Three months? Three years? It felt like it could have been anything. Focusing your life into a day-to-day survival routine did that to you, I supposed. I'd already been sleep deprived before this had first happened. I was now experiencing a new level of exhaustion both physically and emotionally. I had to focus on my own survival, and now the survival of the others. I was stressed and put upon since Takashi's injury. Was I managing to meet the demands of the group or was I failing? I couldn't tell. On top of all that, I had to deal with the death of both of my mothers, my adopted sister, my brother, my adopted father, my friends and my ex-girlfriend. I felt like a train wreck thrown into a sack of skin. My body had been beaten and broken. I felt moments away from breaking completely. I had no idea whether it would be my mind or my body that shattered first, but both felt equally close to destruction. I needed a few days off, but I knew that wasn't a possibility. I hauled myself up the stairs, went into Saeko's room and collapsed beside her onto the large bed.
"T- Levi?" She asked, correcting herself before using my Japanese name. I knew she'd be awake.
"Yeah?" I mumbled in response so quietly I could barely hear myself.
"I can tell you're falling apart at the seams. Takashi should be recovered by tomorrow, don't stress yourself." She said, gently.
"I'm half-deaf, my ex-girlfriend shot herself in front of me, my brother's dead, my biological mother's dead Hyun's dead, Satomi's dead, Li's dead... And that's not even half of it. And I'm being expected to lead the group and stay strong for everyone on top of that. We all have our own problems to deal with, now more than ever, but I'm incapable of anything right now. I feel like I'm fighting a one-man war against the apocalypse, and I know I'm losing. Stressed and falling apart doesn't even cover it. I need a fucking break. I need to collect myself."
"What you need is to trust me. You can rely on me. You know that." She said, kissing me on the cheek softly. I closed my eyes, focused on feeling her warmth next to me.
"That's too much for me to ask of you."
"You're running yourself into the ground. You can't keep this up." I would have said something but I think my state of consciousness had already started to drift away as she said it.
I don't know how long I actually fell asleep for, but I awoke late the next morning to Saeko's gentle but laboured breathing as morning light seeped into the room through a crack in the curtains. I could tell she was having some sort of nightmare. I gripped her close and felt her relax. She slowly opened her eyes.
"Are you ok?" I asked. She laughed softly.
"I should be asking you that." She replied.
"That doesn't answer my question." I pressed.
"I had a nightmare, but it's fine now."
"If you say so..." I said, still showing concern in my voice.
She laughed warmly again and shifted in my arms a little. She seemed happy, and despite everything that was plaguing my mind, I found it infectious. Her loose shirt was soft against my hands. I felt her feet move towards mine. They were freezing. I yelped a little as they touched me. She giggled.
"How the fuck are your feet that cold?!" I exclaimed.
"That's my secret." She winked.
"Seriously though, what the hell?"
"I don't know. They're just like that."
"All the time?"
"Mostly, yeah."
"That must be awful."
"I got used to it." She said, snuggling her head into my chest.
"Damn..."
"Yeah. How's your head?"
"My head's ok now. I mentioned this to Jonah, but I'm considering learning sign language and trying to teach all of you."
"Really? Why's that?" Saeko asked, pulling her head back for a moment.
"So that I have a way to communicate a little easier. I read up a little bit on acoustic trauma, which is what happened to me. Quiet one-on-one conversations aren't supposed to be too much of a problem, but large group conversations and processing lots of sounds at once doesn't go too well. Apparently it really hinders my ability to hear where noises are coming from too. It would also just be good to have a quick way to communicate silently in a pinch. Not everyone will need it I guess, but it would be good for you, Kohta, Rei, Takashi and Jonah to learn. We could probably make some decent plans for when we run into trouble if we can do that. I'd like to learn before we have to stray too far away from here for supplies. I might try to make a start today."
"That sounds like a good plan."
I stayed in the bed with Saeko for another hour before I went downstairs and headed into the library with the laptop. I browsed the aisles for anything on sign language, unfortunately I couldn't find anything there, but there were so many books that I could have easily missed it. I sat at a small round table, opened the laptop up and began browsing pages that taught sign language from English. Not a problem for me, but since the Japanese servers were down, I'd have to translate it myself once I started teaching some of the others. I practiced some of the basic gestures, getting some of them down well, but some made me crash my fingers together quite painfully. Takashi walked in just as I struggled to sign something.
"Ow, shit." I grumbled.
"What are you doing?" He asked.
"Sign language. Thought it might be beneficial, given the whole... deaf situation."
"Good idea. Look, there's a lot I want to talk to you about." He said.
"Go on."
"I really just want to apologise. I've been a bit of an asshole to you since you came here. I just can't handle this whole leader thing. It was just thrown on me, I didn't ask for that."
"It's ok, I get it. I've been a dick too. We're both at fault. We've each been just as bad as the other."
"And that's what I wanted to talk about. Partly. And about our next move."
"You should probably sit down then." I smiled, motioning to the chair next to me.
"How's the sign language going then?" He asked.
"Not too bad, I'm getting a few basics down. I'm about the same level as when you've finished your first English class. I'll get there. It's not as hard to learn as I was expecting."
"And how easy would it be to teach some of us?"
"I'm way ahead of you there. I was thinking the same thing." I said, I tried to use the few hand signs I'd learned with their respective words as I spoke them, trying to make the signing a habit. If I did it, the others would pick it up too, and if I kept it up even while I was speaking everything would stay sharp and well practiced. That was the intention, at least.
"And?" He pressed. I realise I hadn't actually answered his question.
"Well, all the pages are in English so I'll need to translate for the Japanese crew, but that shouldn't be a problem. To be honest if you got a few others in here too and we all learned together we could reach near-fluency in a month." I again tried signing the words I knew, but it felt weird to only have something for my hands to do for a few of the words.
"That would be with intense learning though. What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking several things. First about how you and I should share our duties as joint leaders. It would lighten the load on both of us, and I'm sure we'd both feel like we were actually holding up our ends properly."
"I'm with you there. I know that you've lost some spirit from... the elementary school. Same as Rei, but she found an outlet. But you've been isolating yourself. I know exactly what you're going through. You can rely on me a little if you need to, it doesn't make you weak. It just makes you emotional, it makes you human. If we both synergise this we can do right by everyone."
"Well, that's a deal then." Takashi said, smiling.
"And the other things?"
"Oh, yeah, well they're kind of connected, I guess."
"Yeah?"
"We only have enough food and water for maybe two months. That would usually be a good thing, but a lot can happen in two months... And we have no idea where we'd have to go to get supplies. We need to arrange an expedition in a month's time out to the nearest city that isn't Hokkaido. Shido's men will want to see us dead and we can't let them follow us back here."
"True, but they just want me."
"No, they want to hurt you like you did them. They'll gladly kill us all in front of your eyes before killing you to exact revenge."
"You're right. We're all still in danger."
"We're always in danger as long as we're still alive. This world wants to eat us."
"Yeah. And that's not even including the humans."
"When Rei and I left the school and got separated from the group, I saw a few crazy thugs. Like the ones outside the elementary school after the crash. I'm afraid they're gonna start showing up more."
"Of course they will. They'll be opportunists, and they've finally got the chance to do whatever the hell they want to. They're going to take it."
"Do you think we have what it takes to fight them off?"
"Only one way to find out." I responded.
"That's what I was afraid of. That's why we need to go in a month. There's a lot to keep in mind here. We need to think about being self-sufficient, but we can't until the soil on the cornfield we burned is fertile again. We need to see the situation in the city for ourselves so we know how to go for more supplies. We can probably hunt in the forest out behind here, but there are things we'll only be able to get in the city, like ammo. And weapons to do some actual hunting."
"Any idea who'd be going into the city? Because it would be good if we all had the sign language down by then."
"You, me, Jonah and Kohta was my thinking. Rei and Saeko can hold the place down if the worst happens."
"If the worst happens we want to protect Alice and Yang. We should do our expedition on foot, allow some extra time for any issues we might run into and leave the car for Shizuka to drive them out."
"Perfect. See, if we keep this up I think we can do a good job." Takashi grinned.
"Yeah. I think this can work." I reciprocated his grin.
"Me too."
"There's one more thing... Yang."
"What about her?"
"She doesn't have long left. We knew she was terminal, but Masumi reckons she has just under two weeks at most. I think we need to stay here and focus on caring for her and learning sign language. Those two things need to be our priority right now." I said.
"Agreed. So, I'll go get Jonah and Kohta in here and you can get us up to speed and we'll take a few hours progressing the sign language if that's ok right now? I don't want to overload you but it would be good to learn as much as we can as quickly as possible."
"That's fine. Let's do it." I nodded. Takashi struggled to stand up a little. I got up to help him, but he waved me away and got to his feet before I could do anything.
"I'm ok, just a little stiff in the legs is all. Need to get used to it." He gave a relaxed smile to reassure me. I didn't think he was hiding anything, so I let it go and returned to the laptop.
Jonah, Kohta and Takashi joined me about five minutes later.
"Hey. Take a seat, guys." I said, repeating myself in English for Jonah.
"Where are we starting?" Kohta asked.
"We'll start simple, the alphabet and numbers. I'll teach Jonah first, 'cause I have to translate on the fly for you guys. You two can chat for a bit while I get Jonah started." I said. I told Jonah my plan and he nodded.
"Right. This is 'A', 'B', 'C'..." I walked him through the letters and numbers slowly and repeated them a couple of times, getting him to join in as I went. I tried to show him how some words were formed with what he already learned after I tested him a couple of times to make sure he knew the alphabet and pattern of signing numbers, but with my limited knowledge I didn't really have much to teach him. I let him take a smoke break while I translated the same routine for Kohta and Takashi, having some knowledge of English, they'd already picked up a few bits and pieces but they hadn't taken everything in, so I caught them up.
Jonah came back in and we began browsing the pages together as we all reached the same level. We progressed together from there, bouncing off of each other in a productive symbiosis. Jonah managed to just teach himself from the pages at the same rate I did while I went back and taught Kohta and Takashi what we'd just picked up so that they were never too far behind us. By the end of the session, we were pretty proficient for newcomers, having picked up a decent number of words, which we kept signing alongside our normal speech to each other to make it habitual.
I was feeling a little more positive about things now, I had a clear goal ahead of me and now that Takashi and I had started to make amends, we all had a lot to gain. And with our discussions in the library, we sounded like seasoned leaders, or at least people who knew what they were doing more than I usually felt like I did. "Maybe we could adapt to this world after all…" I thought.